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Linguistic Foundations of Narration in Spoken and Sign Languages
Edited by Annika Hübl and Markus Steinbach
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 247] 2018
► pp. 93–118

Discourse prominence and the selection of anaphora – evidence from pronouns in historical German

| Bergische Universität Wuppertal

Based on the analysis of the distributional properties of different types of pronouns in historical German, the present paper investigates discourse prominence as a factor governing the selection of anaphora in the discourse. It claims that particular types of pronouns refer to entities which are more salient than others not only with respect to the immediately preceding context, but also with respect to the global prominence of the respective referents in the entire discourse, including the subsequent context.

Article outline
  • 1.The role of discourse prominence in the choice of anaphora – introductory remarks
  • 2.Previous ways of determining salience in pronominal choice and resolution
  • 3.Case studies
    • 3.1Data and method
    • 3.2Case study I: 3rd person pronouns vs. simple demonstratives in OHG
    • 3.3Case study II: her/ther/theser vs. (g)ener in OHG
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 25 May 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.247.05pet
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